Before

After

A Contemporary Extension & Outdoor Space

​Welcome to the Buildjunky blog where we share our latest work and professional tips. This blog is a helpful guide to our latest building project which replaced an unusable cold in the winter ugly conservatory.

The old conservatory as it was

The clients had had enough of the conservatory on the back of their home in Doncaster, it was connected by an opening directly to the dining room and lounge which without any doors made this whole area cold in the winter months, the clear plastic roof was constantly being covered in mess by the resident birds and pigeons and was not built particularly well as conservatories do not have to comply with building regulations only planning permission.​After an initial survey by us, our architect Carl visited the clients and after some sketches from him and 3 dimensional images from us, came up with the general design of the extension itself. He then produced the final drawings & building regulations and organised the planning & building regulations submission. We gave the clients a fixed price quotation based on the drawings and our next available start date, and were delighted to contracted for the job.

Our initial 3-Dimensional image of the internal design

​Our Initial task was to dismantle the Conservatory which was incidentally sold on Ebay, which is a far better way of disposal than that of landfill. The demolishing of the dwarf walls was pretty straight forward as was the slab and footings as they were not exactly very deep at only some 200mm. We managed to keep virtually all the rubble created and used this as towards the subbase of the adjoining patio again saving landfill and the cost of skips

Just some of the waste created and how we secured the opening during this phase, the blue sheeting covered virtually the whole garden to protect the existing paving.

We did come across a problem with the ground that we were digging out for the footing in that it was completely made up of all sorts of rubble from when the house was originally built, this is not uncommon on newer houses, but it was hard going as instead of a standard depth of 1 meter we had to go down to about 1.6/1.7 meters which is a deep hole especially when you find old lumps of reinforced concrete, old bricks and stone at every level. With the footing dug out and secured with shuttering we poured the concrete footing to a depth of a meter with footing blocks making up the remainder of the height just below ground level ready for the class b brickwork.

Every inch of the footing had old brick, rock & concrete in the way

Apart from the day when it rained the remainder of the job ran well with a constant arrival of materials and labour being the way in which this build and to fair our jobs stay on timetable. This extension has one or two features that maintain light into the building which is really important when considering any extension to your home, the reason I say this is because without adequate nature light the room that becomes the middle room will be cave like if no allowance is made in the design.

​This has been done on this build by installing the latest in large roof light design, the full height slot windows, bi-fold doors and decorating all walls and ceilings in white matt emulsion which incidentally allows any natural light to bounce and reflect around the interior spaces that adjoin the extension itself.

The latest flat roof light from Velux

The roof of this structure utilises a EDPM roof which is basically a rubber roof that is extremely durable, long lasting and with its associated trims gives a nice finish to the whole job, we also install other types of roofs, such as GRP or fibreglass or apex and lean-to roofs, which all have their merits in different situations the latter best used where there is room under first floor windows.​It was important that this extension flowed from outside to in and vice versa, the reason for this was that with a sloping garden just coming from a full width set of Bi-fold doors to a set of steps would have been a waste of the bi-fold doors, the other reason was that this house did have a really lovely view that extends to open countryside which when linked to the raised planters really gives the whole design a wow factor.

The finished planter extension & patio

The planters actually do several things, with the patio which is covered in antique fossil limestone being virtually parallel to the floor height of the extension, it creates an unsafe drop of the edges as the garden slopes down the garden. The planters combat this but also act as extra seating all the way around should you be entertaining and is extremely versatile as with the additional lights can be used during the day and well into the evening.

The colour scheme of planting and mixture of plants & grasses give the design structure

Plants in position ready for planting and the waste pile levelled ready to take the patio

This end of the planter is mainly for herbs

Notice the planters surround that doubles a seating

Correctly positioned built in lighting makes this whole area usable when entertaining at night, and Planted into the patio for their lovely scent, thyme and Indian mint will scent the area as the clients and their guests catch them with their feet.

Night time lighting

​For those readers who have some horticultural experience, knowledge or just want to know a bit more about the planting, I can tell you that the planting has been designed within a pallet of colours and plants that will give a good constant display throughout the year. Along with the wide range of perennials there is a number of structural plants that gives the whole scheme height, structure and interest that links the other plants which have been chosen for their foliage, height, position, and flowering time.

​I have included some 250 bulbs within the design from Bluebells and Muscari, to a wide selection of Alliums that have been planted to interweave with the sedges. Some of these plants have a habit of out-growing their planting area if left unchecked, however to combat this some plants have been restricted by being planted on in to bigger pots, and then into the beds themselves creating a restricted space but at the same time allow them to grow and thrive without taking complete control of any given area.

Inside the Finished Product

I hope you found this blog of use and if you have any request or questions please drop us a line as we would ​love to hear from you.

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We are a family run high quality building company based on the outskirts of Doncaster who cover a wide range of trades and produce workmanship of the highest standards consistently for all our clients.